Pagina's

woensdag 26 september 2012

From the super tasty book Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi I cooked my adaptation of Tamara’s ratatouille.

I left out some ingredients, including the sugar, I don’t see any point of using it, the dish is already packed with flavor. Really, by cooking all the ingredients one by one and stewing it slowly and in the end baking it in the oven gives such a big layered sensation of tastes, heaven on a plate, yummie.

Take your time cooking the dish, put in all your attention and love and eat it with friends with some rice or bake a bread or a foccacia, open a nice bottle of red wine and start autumn with this beautiful homy dish.

Linda’s ratatouille (4 pers)

Good olive oil

2 medium onions, roughly cut

4 cloves of garlic, in fine slices

Pinch of chili

2 small red bell peppers, chopped in 2 cm chunks

400g pumpkin,peeled and cut in chunks of 3 cm

1 small turnip, peeled and cut in small chunks

200g French beans, in 2 cm bits

1 big aubergine, washed and diced in 2 cm chunks

1 small potato, peeled and in 2cm chunks

2 peeled potatoes from a tin, cut up roughly

1 big tbsp tomato puree

2 dl water

Coriander, chopped for garnish

Salt and pepper

Heat 4 tbsp of olive oil in a heavy casserole and put it on medium heat.

Fry the onions for 5 minutes, stir occasionally. Add garlic, bell peppers with a pinch of chili pepper, stir and bake for another 5 minutes. Add pumpkin and turnip and bake 5 minutes.

With a skimmer scoop all vegetables in a bowl, set aside and add 4 more tablespoons of olive oil in the casserole.

Bake French beans and aubergine chunks for 7 minutes, while you stir once in a while. Add the content of the bowl and then the potato chunks, tomato, tomato puree and season with salt and pepper. Stir everything together, pour in the water, till halfway the vegetables, put on the lid and let it simmer for 30 minutes. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed.

Meanwhile you pre-heat the oven on 200 ˚C.

Scoop the veggies in a wide ovenproof earthenware bowl in a layer of 3-4 cm with all the lovely juices. Bake for another 30 minutes in the middle of the hot oven. The vegetables will be buttery soft and most of the juices boiled down.

Garnish with freshly chopped coriander or parsley and eat with steamed brown rice or some warm bread to dip in all those lovely favors.

zondag 23 september 2012

Fall is round the corner, mornings are dripping wet with dew-drops and in the parks and on my balcony cross-spiders are making beautiful webs. The last tomatoes are doing their best to ripen in the thin sun rays, the basil is struggling with the cold nights, as am I, it’s time for warm socks, unfortunately.

I dedicate this soup to Melissa West, my great yoga teacher from Canada, to warm you and inspire you, Namaste!

Zucchini - sweet potato soup (4 pers)

1 zucchini/courgette, 300g

1 sweet potato, 300g

1 green bell pepper, 150 g

1 onion

1 clove of garlic

1 inch of fresh ginger

10 parsley stalks

piece of mace

1 bay leaf

1 l vegetable broth

fresh parsley leaves for garnish

Peel and cut the onion, garlic and ginger fine and warm some olive oil in a wide soup pan.

Sweat the diced onion, ginger and garlic softly with a pinch of salt.

Meanwhile dice the green bell pepper in small chunks and add to the onion mixture. Slowly let this caramelize for about 10 minutes, while you stir now and then.

Chop the parsley stalks and add towards the end to the mix, together with the mace and bay leaf.

Wash the zucchini and chop lengthwise in half and then in 8 big chunks.

Peel the sweet potato and cut in big chunks.

Add the veggies to the mix, give it a stir and add the broth. Bring to the boil and, with the lid on, let it simmer quietly for about 20-30 minutes, till the vegetables are tender.

Fish out the mace and bay leaf and make a smooth soup with a stick blender.

Serve with some chopped parsley or this lovely rucola pesto:

Rucola pesto

15 g raw cashew nuts, soaked in hot water for at least 1 hour

1 small clove of garlic, chopped fine

Big bunch of rucola, washed

Pinch of salt

1-3 tbsp lemon juice

2-4 tbsp olive oil

Drain the cashews and put all ingredients in a blender. Start with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and olive oil, blend and taste. Add more to your own taste. A little freshly ground black pepper in the end will be nice too.

maandag 17 september 2012

Last post I told you about my gluten accident and the actions I took after that.

I mentioned the use of the Werz flour and the dead easy flat breads I make now every day.

In 10 minutes you can eat these lovely breads, you can even make them when your out camping!

By using almond flour the texture of the breads is soft and still a bit moist. You can use only Werz flour but than the breads will turn out more dry and a bit gritty. By adding sunflower seeds, sesame seeds or flaxseeds you can have a different taste every day!

50 g almond flour +

75 g Werz flour (or just 100g Werz flour)

¼ tsp sea salt

½ tsp tartaric acid baking powder

100 ml buttermilk

Mix the flours with the sea salt and baking powder (and the seeds when you use them) in a bowl. Stir in the buttermilk and knead quickly till the dough forms. Sprinkle a little extra flour on your bench and roll out 2 flat breads, about ½ cm thick and 12-15 cm Ø

dinsdag 11 september 2012

I am back where I started baking gluten free 5 years ago. In the sense that I am using this flour again: Werz mehl. After falling ill from gluten cross contamination the moment I came home, by using a non-certified gluten free gram flour, I decided to only use certified gluten-free flours or almond flour in the future. To stay healthy, because the impact of the gluten is too much for my system. It was years ago for this to happen again, but I was stunned and shocked. I had to stay in bed for 2 days, with flu-type symptoms as a light fever, headaches, loss of appetite, severe digestive problems and very aching joints. Still 1 ½ week later my intestines are sore and vulnerable and my joints still ache.

Every morning I now make 2 easy-peasy flatbreads from this great organic 4-grain mixture, which I will show you very soon. This morning I dreamt of cookies; I just needed a little sweetness in my day.

Staying in the French spirit I made these lovely sablés or sand cookies. The left-over egg yolksfrom the apricot tart you can use in this recipe.

Chantal made me 2 pots of apricot confiture, made of these heavenly sweet and juicy apricots from Sahune, I had to use it for these cookies. Make your own jam or marmalade and fill the sablés with the one of your choice. Or use a tasty organic sugarless fruit spread instead to cut down the sugar.

Sables fourrés (7-9 pieces, depending of your cookie cutter)

150 g Werz flour or brown rice flour

75 g cold organic butter

40 g caster sugar

2 egg yolks

Pinch of sea salt

Mix the flour with the sugar and a pinch of salt.

Throw in the butter and slice it with 2 knifes as small as you can, a crumbly mix will form.

Wash your hands with cold water, add the egg yolks and knead the dough quickly till it comes together. Not longer than necessary. Flatten it out a bit in a rectangle, wrap it in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Pre-heat the oven on 190 ˚C.

Prepare the baking tray with baking paper.

Roll out the dough between 2 sheets of cling film till about 3 mm and cut out cookies. Put them on the baking tray. Roll out the left-over pieces of dough and repeat till all of your dough is used. With an apple corer I cut out the inner circle of half of the cookies.

Bake the cookies 10-12 minutes till golden brown.

Let them cool completely, because they are crumbly, like a good sand cookie should be ;-)

A coffee spoon with confiture in the middle and push the cored cookie softly on top.

maandag 3 september 2012

Getting back into blogging cost me some time. I hope you will apologize me.

I did have a really great time in the Drôme-Provence with my big love.

We camped at a very quiet Aire Naturelle, from Monsieur Bernard at the small hameau la Bernarde. Monsieur Bernard is in his eighties and does everything by himself, the sanitary block, the waste bins, the administration etc. Every afternoon he sits under a tree with some companions and there is always time for a little talk.

That is the best thing on a holiday for me: slowing down, talking to everybody, taking the time for everything. We enjoyed every minute, even when the temperature went over 40 degrees Celsius. We had a wonderful time with our friends Jean and Chantal, especially sitting on their terrace, enjoying another delicious meal cooked by Chantal. She is a great cook and what’s so special is that she is always very concerned about me and the gluten that I never have to worry about being glutinized, I even getspecial treats! The cooking is so flavorsome because of the good sun-ripened ingredients and the pure treatment of them and of course the love she puts in. I adore French cooking.

I took some apricots back with me, along with some other stuff as garlic, olives from Nyons, olive oil from Sahune, honey and of course some wines! I have some bottled summer now for the winter to come!

I had to be back in the cooking business right away because the apricots were so fresh and ripe. I made jam and marmalade, gave away to friends and neighbors and ate the rest.

Oh, and I made this lovely apricot tart.

Almond-apricot tart (6-8 pers)

8 fresh apricots

125 g white almonds

75 g raw cane sugar

3 egg whites

10 g corn or potato starch

75 g butter, melted

1-2 tbsp almond slivers

Butter a tart mold of 20cmØ. Set aside

Pre heat the oven on 180 ˚C

Grind the almonds together with the sugar in a food processor. Put the mixture in a bowl. With a handmixer mix the egg whites one by one in the sugar-almond mixture.

Stir in the starch. And then pour in the melted butter while you mix softly, mix it all good and pour the batter into the mold.

Slice the apricots in 6 and divide over the batter.

Sprinkle with almond slivers and put the tart in the middle of the oven and bake it 25-30 minutes till golden brown and when a needle stuck in comes out clean.

Let the tart cool in the mold and serve as quick as you can, it’s delicious!

You can use another type of fruit in this tart, like banana, apple, prunes, peaches, blackberries. Just try it out!

The 3 egg yolks you can freeze and use at another time or you can make a crème anglaise or custard.

Over mij

Since november 2007 celiac disease has been diagnosed with me and did I start with the gluten-free diet and lifestyle. I'm very interested in health and food issues. And besides, I Love Cooking. I think cooking is creating. I'm not content with the gluten free range of products in the shops in Holland, so I make most of the food myself. I think gluten free food must be healthy, real food, but above all very tasty. Also non-celiacs must (and they do!) enjoy my food.
I am 50 years old and I live, together with my son, in Rotterdam, Holland.***
Sinds november 2007 is bij mij coeliakie geconstateerd en ben ik begonnen met een glutenvrij dieet. Ik ben erg geïnteresseerd in gezondheid en voeding. Daarnaast ben ik gek op koken. Ik ben niet tevreden over het aanbod van glutenvrije artikelen in de winkels, dus maak ik vrijwel alles zelf. Glutenvrij eten moet lekker zijn, gezond en ook voor niet-coeliakers aantrekkelijk zijn.